From August 27, 2020 to August 29, 2021, four Hurricanes (Laura, Delta, Zeta, and Ida) made landfall in coastal Louisiana, causing major destruction to a region of national importance for domestic fisheries and seafood production. In response to these storms, numerous efforts were initiated by public and private entities to provide humanitarian aid and basic commercial necessities. As part of an ongoing effort to assist the state in the documentation of economic impacts, this study was initiated to provide a detailed examination of the storms’ impact on fisheries infrastructure, revenue, and biological resources. The analysis is based on an expansion of spatial impact assessment methods established in the wake of previous storms. Business addresses, obtained from state licensing and permitting records, were geocoded for 8,503 firms representing five marine sectors (commercial fishing vessels, seafood dealers, seafood processors, charter operations and coastal marinas). Economic valuation of individual businesses was based on firm- and industry-level revenue data within established methods of income capitalization and market-based appraisal. All business location and valuation data were integrated into a geographic information system, and combined with highly detailed estimates of maximum surge height and wind speeds for each storm at each firm location. Sixteen survey-derived damage functions were developed and applied to geocoded firm- and storm-data to produce geographically specific estimates of damage to coastal fisheries infrastructure and estimates of annual revenue loss.
